Speaker for the meeting will be Lou Ann Everitt, mayor of the city of Canton. She will speak on hope and plans for the city.

The association was formed and exists for the purpose of promoting friendship and maintaining the best interest of literature, history, current events and cultural arts, members said.

Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month beginning in September and ending in May of each year. More information regarding meetings will be published each month. Visitors are welcome to the meetings, guild members said.

The Children’s Advocacy Center of Van Zandt County will host “Interdiction for the Protection of Children,” a two-day professional conference focused on child trafficking.

The training workshops are presented by the Texas Department of Public Safety of Austin. The conference is scheduled for Sept. 29 and 30 and will be held at Lakeside Baptist Church, Canton.

Registration is free.

Van Zandt County Sheriff Lindsay Ray and DPS Sgt. Scott Johnson, based in Van Zandt County, will offer opening remarks and share the practices and focus of area law enforcement in combatting the problem of child trafficking. Sgt. Derrick Prestidge from Austin will join a team of TDPS experts to present the two-day training.

Van ISD will ask voters to decide on a $13.2 million bond package in the Nov. 3 election.

The Van ISD board of trustees voted to call the election at the Aug. 17 meeting. If the bond proposition is approved, trustees said, it “would address growth and provide needed educational space for current and future Van ISD students.

The board approved the 2015 bond package based on the recommendation of the Bond Advisory Committee.

The committee, comprised of more than 30 parents, business and community leaders and VISD staff representatives, reviewed demographic and capacity data. The bond package was presented to the board by Kenneth Meadows, spokesman for the citizen’s committee.

If approved, the bond election would result in a tax increase of no more than 6.06 cents, or $3.02 monthly on a home valued at $106,209, school officials said.

Sept. 26 will mark a special day for graduates of Wills Point schools, with members of the local Alumni Association Board of Directors planning the latest five-year reunion for all graduates that have passed through the halls of the WPISD.

The 2015 event is expected to be bigger and better than previous versions of the event, with the added draw of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1965 State Champion Wills Point Tiger football team.

The Alumni Board – including President James Harris, Vice President Damon Davis and members Tom Hubbard, Sammie Gunter, Keeta Lybrand, Darlene Kelley, Jackie Ragland, Sundy Rodgers and Nancy Morris – recently announced the event, explaining how graduates can register and listing expected activities for the day of.

Jones stated that the commissioners had proposed a budget with “nothing for capital murder trials” for the fiscal year and wanted to know “where the extra money was going if not to capital murder trials.”

Jones also asked for clarity on the budget and told commissioners that the “public needs to know exactly where the funds were going.”

A Hunt County Grand Jury has cleared sheriff’s deputies of charges in connection with incidents earlier this year.

One in March involved a pregnant woman and sparked widespread outrage when a short video was released on social media. A second incident from November 2014 involved two deputies and an inmate.

Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks spoke out this week on both cases.

“In reference to the Deanna Robinson incident, I wish to point out that as of today, no official complaint has been filed with the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office in reference to the incident that was disseminated through social media. I was notified on Easter Sunday that there was a video on social media. That was my only notification. We immediately opened an internal affairs investigation into the incident on our own,” Meeks said in a news release.